PRO FOOTBALL

PRO FOOTBALL;For Jets, Nothing Good Ever Happens in Houston

By FRANK LITSKY

Published: December 17, 1995

HOUSTON, Dec. 16—
In what has become the pro football equivalent of the ultimate nightmare, the Jets (3-11) will play the Oilers (5-9) Sunday (Channel 4, 1 P.M., New York time). This may be the Oilers' last game in Houston and the outmoded Astrodome, advertised as the Eighth Wonder of the World when it opened 30 years ago, and the Jets will hardly mourn.

Last year, in the final game of a 6-10 season, the Jets took a 24-10 beating here. They saw some of their veterans quit in midgame and learned that their general manager, Dick Steinberg, had stomach cancer.

The year before, in their final game, the Jets had to beat the Oilers to sneak into the last wild-card playoff berth with an 8-8 record. Instead, the Oilers embarrassed them, 24-0.

With or without the Oilers, the Jets are a bad December/January team. In those months, they have lost their last nine games, and 21 of 27 going back to the 1989 season.

This year, the earlier months were almost as bad for the Jets. They were not much better for the Oilers, and they became worse when the team agreed to move to Nashville next year. Many fans abandoned them, and as Marvin Washington, the Jets' defensive end, said, "There will probably be more people on the field Sunday than in the stands."

The stands were filled two years ago when the Oilers, riding a 10-game winning streak, humiliated the Jets. Nothing could slow those Oilers, not the injuries that sidelined their quarterback (Warren Moon), tailback (Lorenzo White) and a top receiver (Webster Slaughter), not even a sideline fistfight between their defensive (Buddy Ryan) and offensive (Kevin Kilbride) coordinators.

On the New York Times report of that game, the headline read, "Tonight, the Jets Sleep with the Fish." Coach Bruce Coslet, too, because the next week he was dismissed.

Last year's game here was no better for the Jets. It should have been because while the Jets had lost four straight, dropping a potentially winning record to 6-9, the Oilers had lost 11 straight. But the Jets played badly, and some hardly played. Brian Washington, a starting safety, and James Hasty, a starting cornerback, were benched for lethargic play, and when Coach Pete Carroll told Washington to return to the game, he refused.

It got worse for the Jets. When the players reached the locker room after the game, Carroll told them of Steinberg's illness (the general manager would die nine months later). Steinberg had recruited many of the Jets' players, and the gloom became gloomier.

"We won't be able to forget this for a long time," Carroll said later. And as quarterback Boomer Esiason said, "Everything that could happen to this team has happened."

There was one more blow. Two weeks later, Carroll, who deserved a better fate, was dumped after one year, to be replaced by Rich Kotite. Carroll was quickly hired by the San Francisco 49ers as defensive coordinator. Brian Washington and Hasty are now starting for the Kansas City Chiefs, and other Jets veterans who seemed to have lost their zest for the game are gone. The veterans who remain are still angry over that Houston embarrassment.

"Some of our guys didn't believe," Marvin Washington said. "Some guys quit. This year isn't like that. The guys are still looking forward to coming to work. This year, the guys have stuck together. The ones without character are no longer here.

"We're playing harder this year. It's different guys, different coaches, a whole different deal. We're professionals. We get paid to go out there and play hard. There are a bunch of things at stake for a lot of guys on this team, so they have to be concerned not only about the team but themselves."

Mo Lewis, the Jets' outside linebacker, felt the same way.

"I don't think everybody quit last year, just some," he said. "If I feel I have problems and want to move on, I still don't want to indicate to other teams that I quit. This is a different team. There are a lot of young guys."

There is one new young guy in Houston in 37-year-old Jeff Fisher, in his first full season as the Oilers' head coach. When Ryan was the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Fisher was his defensive coordinator and Kotite his offensive coordinator.

After the 1990 season, Norman Braman, who owned the Eagles, and Harry Gamble, the club president, ended the Buddy era after five years. Kotite and Fisher talked this week about what happened.

"At 8:30 in the morning," Kotite said, "Norman Braman talked to Buddy and fired him. Then Jeff was called upstairs and I was called later. I thought they were going to fire me. Instead, they made me head coach."

As Fisher recalled: "I was notified that Buddy wouldn't be retained. I gathered my things and asked Harry Gamble permission to look for another job. Harry said: 'Not so fast. See Braman.' I did, and Braman said the job was between me and Richie. Four hours later, he told me he had hired Richie and wanted me to stay as defensive coordinator."

Fisher declined. He spent the next year as the defensive coordinator of the then Los Angeles Rams, then moved to the Oilers. When the Oilers dropped Jack Pardee in November last year, Fisher, like Kotite, became a head coach.

Both coaches are trying to improve declining teams, so there is much at stake Sunday. For one, the Oilers will start their prize young quarterback, Steve McNair, for the first time.